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ONE

CELIA West sat alone in her office, a corner suite in the family penthouse at West Plaza She kept her wide, preternaturally slick desk neat, the few files stacked in a corner, pens lined up, computer screen conveniently placed, laptop dock accessible Everything else was put away in drawers and filing cabinets Anyone standing before her wouldn’t be able to tell a thing about her, except that she kept her office tidy People ht about some of them

On the computer, she clicked on an encrypted file she’d been sent

A video played, dark and grainy feed from a security camera outside a jewelry store on the south side of don The camera looked down at the front doors froe, as if the walls had shrunk Time stamp read 1:23 ay jeans, shit-kicking boots Hoodlums of one flavor or another One carried a backpack, one carried a baseball bat, the third a crowbar Standard srab

Before they could get started on theand grating, though, a ilante walked into the fraed, but the camera didn’t record audio

The vigilante was just a kid Male, tall in that ie boys All limbs and chaotic movement He wore a black T-shirt and sweatpants and a home most of his hair and the top half of his face His chin was smooth, youthful He stood with his fists clenched at his sides, bouncing a little on worn sneakers He was nervous, excited—this was obviously a first outing Too young and stupid not to know he couldn’t save the world

The robbers didn’t have any patience for this They stood back athis was really happening Then the guy with the baseball bat stepped forward and swung, ai for the kid’s head

The vigilante vanished Blinked out of existence, there … and then not

Celia used the laptop’s touch pad to back up the video and leaned forward to watch the scene again The average personcutelse in the ione the next

The guy with the baseball bat stumbled, thrown off balance when his blow didn’t connect All three crooks looked around in obvious confusion Then the baseball bat jerked out of the guy’s hands, swung apparently of its own volition, and caught its for on the concrete sidewalk

The kid hadn’t vanished, then—invisible, along hat he earing

The other two lunged at the bat hanging in midair The bat fell—wisely, the kid dropped it and wasn’t there when the two crooks attacked the spot he should have been One of them bent double, from what looked like a kick in the crotch The other stu too badly, really

It couldn’t last, however ht have just gotten lucky, but he swung in a likely spot, and connected The kid flickered back to visibility, cringing and holding his shoulder Pain, maybe any distraction, interrupted his powers He had to focus to stay invisible